2018衛生紙之亂！翻版的「蝴蝶效應」| ‘The war of tissues’ – A case of butterfly effect

TAIPEI (The China Post) – Have you ever run out of toilet paper? Well, one of the biggest news in Taiwan last year was a shortage of toilet paper amid pricing panic for which RT-MART was allegedly responsible. The incident started with a press release announcing that the price of tissue paper would be raised by up to 30 percent, starting in February 2018. A piece of news that received wide publicity from the media and created a real-life “butterfly effect.”

The butterfly effect is the idea that small things, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, can have a major impact on a complex system, like creating typhoons. Chaos literally started from after the release of the press release that quoted suppliers for announcing the drastic increase in prices of major tissue brands, between 10 percent and 30 percent.

Two other hypermarket brands confirmed the information after the news went out. They said that they also received the aforesaid notice from their suppliers, but they thought that the timing and the actual amount of the increase were still under discussion. They never thought that RT-MART would let the cat out of the bag first.

消息一出，另外2家量販店也證實，確實有收到通知，但實際漲幅與時間點都還在談，沒想到他們（指大潤發）會先公開。

Many people went to the hypermarkets to stock up tissue paper, just in case that the price will soon go up drastically, leaving the market racks all empty. (NOWnews)▲就怕衛生紙漲價，民眾紛紛搶買衛生紙，不少賣場貨架上空空如也。（圖／愛買提供）

As the message went out, however, consumption skyrocketed; customers went crazy and just rushed to the hypermarkets to grab and pile up tissue paper. Costco, A.mart, and Carrefour became the “collateral victims” of this situation.

而消息一出許多民眾因為預期心理，紛紛瘋狂到賣場搶買、囤貨，好市多、愛買、家樂福都成為「受害」的賣場。

Netizens later on nicknamed the incident: “The war of tissues” or even “The pacification of poos” which is homonymous in Chinese to a historically renowned revolt called “A Lushan Rebellion.” The Fair Trade Commission eventually investigated the case and slammed RT-MART, the alleged “chief culprit,” with an NT$3.5 million fine.